The Kahului real estate market, one of the largest components of the Maui housing market, saw another difficult month in July. Both the median price of a Kahului home for sale and the number of properties sold declined in the most recent tracking period, perhaps a reflection of the expired federal tax credit. An August 7, 2010 article from the Honolulu Star Advertiser noted that “Home sales and prices were little changed on Maui last month, as activity eased away from the dramatically higher number of sales and more severe median price declines that occurred earlier this year. There were 61 single-family home sales in July, just two more than the 59 sales in the same month last year. The median price was $500,000, down 6 percent from $532,000 in the comparable period. For condominiums there were 69 July sales, an 11.5 percent decrease from 78 sales a year earlier. The median price was down 6.5 percent to $390,000 from $417,000…Year to date, the number of single-family home sales is up 37 percent, and the number of condo sales is up 52 percent. Year-to-date median prices are down 9 percent for single-family homes and are down 28 percent for condos. Some of the recent slowdown in sales activity might be due to the end of a federal stimulus program that provided a tax credit of $6,000 to $8,000 to buyers who signed home purchase contracts by April 30. Most of those sales have been completed.”
The dual decline in the number of properties sold and the average sales price of Kahului homes for sale was echoed in an August 6, 2010 article from the Pacific Business News. This piece stated that “Maui homes sales saw a slight increases in July, but the rest of the news wasn’t as good. The median price of homes there slipped, and both sales volume and prices fell for condos. The 61 single-family homes sold last month represented a 3 percent gain from the previous year. Condo sales dropped 12 percent, from 78 last June to 69 this past month. The median sales price for single-family homes and condos both dipped more than 6 percent. Home prices averaged $500,000 in July compared to $532,000 in 2009, and condo prices went from $417,000 to $390,000.”